Sunday, 9 March 2008

Global Hawk UAV

Just thought I'd post this photo that someone sent me of a Global Hawk UAV that returned from Iraq recently. It flew back under its own power... That's Iraq to Edwards Air Force Base in California non stop.

Notice the mission paintings on the fuselage. This UAV has flown over 250 missions. On really long missions the Global Hawk can stay up for almost 2 days at altitudes above 60,ooo feet. It is controlled through satellite communication. The Global Hawk can taxi, take off, fly a mission, return, land and put itself back in the hanger without a pilot inside.

When the Global Hawk attacks a target, it flies in at very high speed and fires AMRAAMS and other homing munitions... and is gone without ever being seen.

And for those who thought India has net-centric capability, this UAV shows what net-centric really means. It has direct AWACS and satellite input and, therefore, 360 degree situational awareness. When it is assigned to strike a target, everything this is needed --- maps, target recognition, weaponry data, etc --- is fed to it AUTOMATICALLY from the assigned controller.

13 comments:

Mr. Shukla, the Tejas is also equipped with communication links from satellite (GPS), AWACs and ground radars, besides other planes.

Please note that UAVs and cruise missiles belong to the same type, i.e. both are similarly guided by military GPS signals. Now in case of the Hawk UAV, atleast the navigational guidance is likely to be GPS only. However, if a manual instruction is to be sent from any controller to it via satellite, some different technology other than GPS may be used --- unnecessary in a piloted plane like Tejas.

"When the Global Hawk attacks a target, it flies in at very high speed and fires AMRAAMS and other homing munitions... and is gone without ever being seen."

really, it carries AMRAMM's all the way from USA.

I was not aware of that, this was covered in a IEEE report, designed to be used mostly for surveillance missions, on its own the machine is not worth anything, add the sensors and you have something else.

Yes Global Hawk definetly shows capabilities in terms of mission endurance and ability to collate and analyse data from distributed sources,however I wonder as to how a relatively un manueverable UAV (relative to manned fighters pulling 6-7g's or more)would fair against a nation armed with contemporary SAM systems as against a war torn state like Afganistan.

Anonymous said..."Yes Global Hawk definetly shows capabilities in terms of mission endurance and ability to collate and analyse data from distributed sources,however I wonder as to how a relatively un manueverable UAV (relative to manned fighters pulling 6-7g's or more)would fair against a nation armed with contemporary SAM systems as against a war torn state like Afganistan."

It can not fire any missiles its used for recon, and it comes from the high altitude endurance program , with that radar Xsection management that the Americans are so good at, no one is going to shoot it down with a SAM.

It has nothing to do with a manned fighter, everything to do with the capability to collect information through its sensors and share it.

It seems to me like a knee jerk reaction when someone tried to explain the netcentricity.

Is this globalhawk netcentric because this is an UAV operated remotely?

If yes, we are also operating UAVs from israel with endurance of 4-5 hours.

Is this because of its reconnaissance electronics package?

If yes, we are getting Phalcon and also developing our own AWACS.

If yes for both, we don't have a political far sighted view and trust from the services especially army and air force to approve a project to extend the capabilities of our own Nishant. we do have a UAV platform and we do have knowhow to load our own electonics package.

I think you still have completely missed the point that someone tried to explain about netcentricity. I am not a guru in this subject but I can definitely tell you this much by reading both points.